George Floyd’s murder by Derek Chauvin while three other
Minneapolis police officers did zero is an act deserving of mass protests.
HOWEVER Floyd’s murder is now being used as a pretext for Marxist Antifa to
spur anarchy with senseless violence, rioting and looting. If the Dems don’t
stop their ideological anarchists I have a suspicion Pro-2nd
Amendment property protecting will escalate. Justin Smith goes over some
details that has struck this match inflaming America.
JRH 6/1/20
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American Cities Explode
George Floyd's Murder and Chaos Across America
By Justin O. Smith
Sent 5/30/2020 12:51 AM
"It doesn't matter
whether #GeorgeFloyd was an
upstanding member of society. It doesn't matter whether blacks commit a
disproportionate share of violent crimes. There is no excuse for the police to
squeeze the life out of an unresisting individual. Period!" ~
Dinesh D'Souza
No one finds justice served in the wake of any horrific,
terrible tragedy, by burning their cities and towns down around them in the
name of "peaceful protest". Justice is not served by ignoring the due
process of the law for police officers who have abused their authority and
power, in a manner that can only be described as evil, no matter how justified
one might believe one's self to be in acting to mete out immediate,
self-gratifying, vigilante justice. And justice absolutely was not served on Memorial
Day, May 25th 2020, when a police officer ripped forty-six year old George
Floyd, from the backseat of a police cruiser, and threw him to the ground and
restrained him, with a known deadly hold, and pinned him by the neck until he
was choked unconscious and died, as surrounding witnesses begged and pleaded
for his life.
Floyd was an ex-convict who served five years stemming from
an aggravated assault conviction in 2007, but he was trying to turn his life
around, as seen in an old video, where he urges the youth of America to reject
gun violence. At one point, Floyd states: "Our young are clearly
lost, man, clearly lost, man. I don't even know what to say anymore. You
youngsters just going around bursting guns in crowds, kids getting
killed."
[Blog Editor – VIDEO: George Floyd
before being killed, This is what he said 2 youth “Our young generation is
clearly lost.”
Posted by Home250 news TV
May 28, 2020]
Floyd, 46, grew up in Houston, Texas, where he was known as
a gifted athlete and hip-hop artist, according to the Houston Chronicle, and he was well known
by the patrons of Conga Latin Bistro, where he worked security. As Luz Maria
Gonzalez notes, "He'd keep us safe there". On Tuesday, the restaurant
shared a photo of Floyd in his blue security uniform, with the caption,
"We'll always remember you".
George Floyd was a "gentle giant" and helpful man
by all accounts, and sadly, the taking of his life, has left a little six year
old girl without her father.
Floyd's death came, after he supposedly "resisted"
officers and was placed in handcuffs. But subsequent evidence has shown that he
was not resisting or being violent, and he was not armed. He was first
approached, around 8:00 pm, by four Minneapolis police officers -- Derek Chauvin, Thomas Lane, Tou Thao,
and J. Alexander Kueng -- who answered a call to investigate
a possible forgery attempt and a counterfeit $20 dollar bill. What followed, at
least in part, was captured in a video, that has exploded across social media
sites, made by a young woman, Darnella Frazier, who was standing
nearby outside the Cup Foods Market.
[Blog Editor: Andrew McCarthy of the National Review
(5/30/20 4:07 PM) adds some info to Mr.
Floyd’s death that cannot be deciphered from video footage. The extra info does
not help murderous cops but does add context to the whole idiocy.]
There on the corner of 38th Street and Chicago Avenue South,
Officer Derek Chauvin is seen pressing his knee into George Floyd's neck for
nine long minutes, with Floyd's face pressed so hard into the pavement his nose
begins bleeding. And Floyd tearfully pleads with Chauvin: "Please, please,
please, I can't breathe. Please, man."
"You got him down, man! Let him breathe at least"
said one bystander in the background.
Someone asks, "You're going to just sit there with your
knee on his neck?"
One alarmed citizen exclaims, "Bro, he's not even
f###ing moving! Get off his neck!"
Another asks, "Did you kill him?"
Floyd told the officers he could not breathe twelve times,
including within the first few seconds of the video. Floyd said, "I'm
about to die ... they're gonna kill me", and called out for his mother.
Approximately four minutes into the video, he lost consciousness, stopped
breathing and his body went limp. Forty seconds later witnesses were screaming
that he was unresponsive. At least sixteen times bystanders begged the officers
to take Floyd's pulse. And all they received in return was a hard, cold,
depraved indifference to a man's life draining out beneath them.
Each time a concerned individual attempted to get Officer
Tou Thao to check Floyd's vitals or to stop Chauvin from choking him any
further, Thao would become aggressive and combative and simply turn away from
their pleas, exhibiting the same depraved indifference to a man's life being
snuffed out there on the pavement. Thao has previously had police brutality
charges leveled against him, in 2017; the case settled out of court to the tune
of $25,000.
Ms. Frazier told the Washington Post:
"The police killed him, bro, right in front of everybody. He was crying,
telling them like, 'I can't breathe', and everything. ... They killed this
man."
On Wednesday, May 27th, Bridgett Floyd, sister to George,
said: "I would like for those officers to be charged with murder because
that's exactly what they did. They murdered my brother. He was crying for
help."
Representing the Floyd Family, Attorney Ben Crump observed: "It's a 'I can't
breathe' again case in 2020, and it's worse than Eric Garner in many ways
because you hear the people even pleading with them, 'Please get your knee off
his neck. Have some humanity. This is a human being.'"
I have very nearly stated the exact words as Angela
Stanton-King, Alveda King's goddaughter, who tweeted: "Why didn't someone
stop George Floyd's death? They should have fought at that pivotal moment.
Instead of just standing there watching." That was the time they should
have been raising unholy hell, not a day later, not two and three days later
and not against their own community.
Addressing the use of the knee on a suspect's neck, Mylan
Masson, a former Minneapolis police officer in charge of training, noted that
once the officer has the individual under control, the hold is to be released.
It is used until the threat has stopped. Floyd represented no threat whatsoever
to anyone, as he lay prone on the ground in cuffs.
According to the Star-Tribune, George Kirkham, professor
emeritus at the College of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Florida State
University, said that placing the knee on a suspects neck is seldom taught in
police academies anymore. The move has been acknowledged as risky and capable
of causing brain death in a matter of a few minutes.
Water boils at 212 degrees, and in the aftermath of what can
only be described as a callous and indifferent murder of George Floyd,
Minneapolis and St Paul are exploding and burning at 1500 degrees in a violent
response and riots across the area, as protests elsewhere in America unfold,
from Minneapolis to Memphis, Los Angeles to Louisville, and Denver to Atlanta,
even seeing barricades breached near the White House. Somewhere shortly before
9:00 CST, on May 29th, the 88th Precinct in New York came under attack by
protesters, with police cruisers destroyed and multiple fires set, as reported
by Bernie Kerik, former New York City Police Commissioner, to Fox News.
And, in fact, one of the four police officers, Derek
Chauvin, was just arrested today, May 29th, and charged with third-degree
murder/manslaughter, but shortly afterwards, Judge Andrew Napolitano told Fox
News that there was enough evidence seen through a horrendous, gut-wrenching,
soul-searing video to warrant a charge of second degree murder.
Ms. Stanton-King expressed her outrage, stating: "Choke
a man to death with Your knee which we all know was intentional and you don't
get charged with 1st degree murder ... How do he slide with just a manslaughter
charge and 3rd degree murder?"
By Wednesday night, the situation had devolved to the point
that Governor Tim Waltz and Mayor Jacob Frey called out the Minnesota National
Guard to halt the violence that started around the 3rd Precinct Police Station,
as protesters set fires and caused some massive damage to every business within
a two block radius, according to CBS Minnesota. The 3rd Precinct had to be
abandoned by the police and was soon overrun and completely destroyed by an
angry mob.
More than one-hundred seventy businesses were also damaged
and looted in the St Paul and "Twin Cities" area on Thursday, as the
protests escalated. According to the Pioneer Press, numerous fires were set by
large crowds across the city, and St Paul's Mayor Melvin Carter noted that
"the anger, the anguish, the sadness, the rage that we're seeing in the
community, it's understandable."
Disgusting and disturbing doesn't even begin to describe
what is occurring, as the left-wing interlopers of Antifa,
anti-American fascists, are seen urging the destruction further,
and young blacks are destroying their own neighborhoods and the very businesses
owned and operated by their fellow black minority brethren and other minorities
too.
One surely must wonder where was a similar outrage and calls
to allow due process to take its course, and where were the riots, when
Minneapolis Police Officer Mohammed Noor murdered Justine Damond.
It's hard not to miss the incongruity and hypocrisy of the views of the
protesters, rioters and their apologists; and, with that said, the video
evidence in the Floyd case is so damning that Chauvin's arrest within four days’
time was one-hundred percent the right call, however, the charge may need to be
revisited as all the evidence unfolds in the coming days.
Floyd's family released a public call for an end to the
violence, while also thanking all those who have actually been protesting
peacefully. Speaking to the unrest, Courteney Ross, George's girlfriend of
three years, said, "I am heartbroken."
Ross continued as she spoke with the Star Tribune:
"Waking up this morning to see Minneapolis on fire would be something that
would devastate Floyd. He loved the city. He came here [from Houston] and
stayed here for the people and the opportunities. ... He was about love and
peace. ... I want people to protest in a peaceful way."
Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman is pursuing the murder
charge against Chauvin and investigating deeper to see what charges might be
forthcoming in regards to the other officers, who seemed to exhibit a
disturbing and marked indifference to what was transpiring right in front of
them. President Trump and Attorney General William Barr are also actively
monitoring the case, and U.S. Attorney Erica MacDonald and FBI Special Agent in
Charge Rainer Drolshagen will be conducting the federal investigation.
And, in the meantime, as of May 28th, Freeman has acknowledged that all four
officers involved in Floyd's murder are not cooperating with the investigation
and are pleading their 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination.
Now, newly released reports, by Anna Lastra and Eric Rasmussen, indicate
that there exists a high probability that Chauvin, who has had 18 complaints of
police abuse placed against him during his nineteen year career, knew Floyd
from the El Nuevo Rodeo Nightclub, where they both had previously worked
security for Maya Santamaria. According to Santamaria, Chauvin worked there for
17 years, as outside security, while Floyd worked as inside security. This
certainly should be raising some eyebrows and demanding an intense bit of
scrutiny and deeper investigation.
Some have suggested that we need to know what happened in
the hour before the video was made, but it doesn't really matter. Even if Floyd
had allegedly committed a bank robbery or a murder in that time frame, police
all across the nation take down and capture violent murderers every day without
killing them in the process.
Yes, most police officers are outstanding, good and decent
and honorable men and women, and they normally have a rough job and are asked
to do unimaginably tough things, as they carry out their duty to "protect
and serve" the community, that has hired them and where they usually also
live. That same duty also extends to suspects, especially suspects in
non-violent crimes, and especially when a suspect is cooperating and not
resisting, as was the case with George Floyd. Their duty demands that they
subdue and arrest suspects, in such a case, without taking the person's life in
the process.
Tragic as this case is, it still is not a free license to
loot and destroy, simply because people are angry, and not one single criminal
looter should be given a pass from any misplaced sense of justice, to assuage
the outrage that may be genuinely felt by many, since many other outraged
citizens have, in fact, expressed themselves angrily, loudly and
peacefully.
At the same time, these police officers who set themselves
up as judge, jury and executioners of George Floyd must pay for their gross
negligence, their lack of professionalism and compassion, and their inexcusable
depraved indifference to the distress Floyd's mind and body experienced, as he
knew his death was imminent. Not only did they prevent a female EMT from trying
to save Floyd's life, but for nearly 5 long minutes after warnings from
witnesses, Chauvin kept his knee pressed on his windpipe, as all the officers
knew Floyd was unconscious, was not breathing and that his body had gone limp.
If the witnesses could so readily see that Floyd was dying, the officers had to
have also known as well, and yet, they denied him oxygen, never attempted CPR,
never took his pulse and never tried to save his life. The level of inhumane
treatment in this case that took George Floyd's life demands criminal charges
for the other officers involved and prosecutions that end with hefty prison
sentences for all four officers.
These officers failed to live up to anything remotely
associated with simply being a good human being. Any further revelations will
not change the simple truth, that with just a little more care and a sense of
urgency and some common sense, one check of Floyd's vitals at the first sign of
distress, George Floyd would still be alive. Even sadder, it seems the price of
a man's life today sets at twenty dollars.
By Justin O. Smith
_____________________________
Edited by John R. Houk
Text enclosed by brackets and
embedded links are by the Editor.
© Justin O. Smith
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